The Audit

WaPo Boosts 401(k)s for No Good Reason

By Dean Starkman   Oct 8, 2009 at 10:42 AM

A main beef I have with personal finance reporting—beyond its constant purveying of banalities ("diversify!";"buy and hold!")—is that it generally... More

AP: Geithner’s Wall Street Speed Dial

By Ryan Chittum   Oct 8, 2009 at 10:01 AM

The Associated Press rakes a little muck onto Tim Geithner's shoe this morning courtesy of his own phone records. Who... More

Audit Interview: The FT’s Lionel Barber

“We got a piece of the puzzle [but] we don’t tend to go grassroots up. There’s an important lesson for all of us.”

By Dean Starkman   Oct 8, 2009 at 08:29 AM

Among the discomfiting changes sweeping through the financial news business in the U.S. has been the rising influence of what... More

Wednesday Links: Weedkiller, Bloomberg Heds, and WSJ Analysis

By Ryan Chittum   Oct 7, 2009 at 06:22 PM

Charles Duhigg's fruitful investigative summer appears to be getting results. He reports today in The New York Times that the... More

Detroit News on the Downside of the 401(k)

By Ryan Chittum   Oct 7, 2009 at 05:49 PM

With all the turmoil in the stock market over the last couple of years—well, make that the last twelve years... More

Miami Herald Gets a Deserved Pat on the Back

By Ryan Chittum   Oct 7, 2009 at 11:59 AM

Congrats to Jack Dolan, Matthew Haggman, and Rob Barry of The Miami Herarld for winning first place in the the... More

The Journal Inside the Hilton Grand Jury

By Ryan Chittum   Oct 7, 2009 at 09:53 AM

The Journal has some very good reporting today on a scandal in the normally-staid chain-hotel business (part of which I... More

Tuesday Links: Bloomberg v. Fed, Hypothermia, The Economist

By Ryan Chittum   Oct 6, 2009 at 05:43 PM

Bloomberg News continues its battle to let a little sunshine in on what the Federal Reserve is doing to bail... More

Nonsense at Newsweek on Overdrafts

Columnist pulls the ol’ personal-responsibility card

By Ryan Chittum   Oct 6, 2009 at 04:14 PM

Steve Tuttle of Newsweek has one of the worst columns I've seen in a good long time, arguing "Why Banks... More

NYT and Frontline Tag-Team Prepaid Debit Cards

By Ryan Chittum   Oct 6, 2009 at 10:58 AM

The New York Times and PBS's Frontline have a terrific story this morning on prepaid debit cards, yet another way... More

WSJ Is Good on Medical Transparency

By Dean Starkman   Oct 6, 2009 at 09:08 AM

How's that expression go?—"Sunlight is the best disinfectant." The Journal's Thomas M. Burton this morning shows Louis Brandeis's adage is... More

Monday Links: Pew, Murdoch, and Treasury Lies

By Ryan Chittum   Oct 5, 2009 at 07:28 PM

Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism found, unsurprisingly, that media coverage of financial issues and business was overwhelmingly focused on... More

More on Measuring Too Big to Fail

By Ryan Chittum   Oct 5, 2009 at 05:22 PM

Felix Salmon criticizes the Gretchen Morgenson piece on Dean Baker and Too Big to Fail, writing that the dollars talked... More

NYT is Excellent on Private-Equity

By Ryan Chittum   Oct 5, 2009 at 03:12 PM

If you've been wondering what ever happened to high-flying private-equity, whose ever-bigger and ever-more-debt-laden deals dominated financial-press headlines in 2006... More

Measuring the Ongoing Cost of Too Big to Fail

By Ryan Chittum   Oct 5, 2009 at 10:21 AM

I haven't seen anyone try to estimate the implicit subsidy taxpayers provide megabanks because of Too Big to Fail policies.... More